Another perfectly Trumpian assignment

 

Trump’s nominee to head the OSC is stalled in the Senate. A White House official told NBC News that Paul Ingrassia, a former podcast host with a history of incendiary commentary, is meeting with senators in one-on-one meetings over the next month before a confirmation vote takes place.

[...]

President Donald Trump and other prominent Republicans have alleged that [Smith's] investigations into then-candidate Trump amounted to illegal political activity.

  NBC News

Obviously it wasn't illegal.

On Wednesday, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., requested that the OSC investigate Smith for “unprecedented interference in the 2024 election.”

[...]

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal agency, confirmed to NBC News on Saturday that it's investigating Smith for alleged violations of the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits certain political activities by government officials. Trump and his allies have not presented specific evidence of wrongdoing.

Well, what a fucking surprise.

The independent agency lacks the authority to bring criminal charges and prosecute individuals who violate the Hatch Act, but it may seek disciplinary action for a federal government employee, such as removal from the civil workforce, or refer its findings of Hatch Act violations to the DOJ for investigation.

If they're looking for violations of the Hatch Act, they could be kept busy night and day in Trump's administration.

Disgusting.

The rule of law presupposes that there are, well, rules. These rules are supposed to provide a consistent, repeatable, and, most important, knowable set of outcomes. Predictability is the key feature of a functioning rules-based system, because people have to know the rules—and the consequences of breaking them—before they act. The difference between living under the rule or law and living by the whims of a madman is that the rights, responsibilities, prohibitions, and privileges of your situation do not change radically every time a person in power throws a hissy fit.

But the Supreme Court has decided that rules and laws do not apply to Trump, and they don’t protect anybody from Trump. That means that the rule of law is functionally dead in this country.

  The Nation

UPDATE 08/03/2025:

 And another!

For the love of Pete.  We are in absurd world.

SDNY.  What has been known for decades as "the Sovereign District of New York."  The country's premier DOJ agency.  There goes that reputation.*

UPDATE 08/08/2025:

New DC US Attorney and former Fox host Jeanine Pirro was back on Fox complaining that nobody wants to work for her. Laura Ingraham: “I’ve been hearing that there is a big problem with staffing—what’s going on? Pirro: I’m down 90 prosecutors. If you want a job in the largest US Attorney’s office, contact me.”

  Meidas Touch

*CORRECTION:  She's not at SDNY, she's at DC. 

UPDATE 10/15/2025:


UPDATE 10/20/2025:

The face of courage

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance has a substack article today that you should read about what it means to be a federal prosecutor.  She includes a resignation letter from one of the attorneys who won't serve to dismiss the legitimate case against Mayor Eric Adams.

click to enlarge

The money quote:

“There is a tradition in public service of resigning in a last-ditch effort to head off a serious mistake. Some will view the mistake you are committing here in the light of their generally negative views of the new Administration. I do not share those views. I can even understand how a Chief Executive whose background is in business and politics might see the contemplated dismissal-with-leverage as a good, if distasteful, deal. But any assistant U.S. attorney would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials, in this way. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion. But it was never going to be me.”

UPDATE 08:37 am:

FYI:  Scotten clerked for both John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh.  Not exactly a whiny liberal.

Total fuckup by SDNY

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York wrote each other in March 2020 that "yeah, we lied" in a letter to Judge Alison Nathan about a key document it had failed to share with defense lawyers. The office later retreated from that characterization, arguing instead the trouble resulted from a rush to file papers under a tight deadline.

[...]

In another newly revealed exchange, one supervisor in the terrorism and international narcotics section emailed his co-chief after the problems began to surface that the trial team had done some "pretty aggressive stuff here over the last few days."

[...]

Earlier, a junior lawyer on the case suggested they "bury it" in a stack of other papers they provided the defendant, apparently in hopes the critical document would be overlooked during the rush of the trial.

Judge Nathan did not conclude the U.S. attorney's office engaged in intentional wrongdoing, but she has referred lawyers there to the Office of Professional Responsibility at Justice Department headquarters, a unit that investigates attorney misconduct. The judge also asked FBI inspectors to probe separate allegations against FBI agents on the case.

[...]

The U.S. Attorney's office had sought to shield their internal communications from public view. But the judge found there's a significant public interest in understanding what went wrong and ensuring it never happens again.

  NPR

And we needed the SDNY to cover Trump's crimes in New York since Congress didn't hold him accountable. But now, more than ever, the office will be hit with claims that it's corrupt, and therefore, that Trump is innocent.

GOP: the party of grifters

So THAT's what Berman was so exercised about.  Kudos to Berman and Strauss.

Steve Bannon.  Who would have imagined?

2/ The crowdraising campaign raised more than $25 million, and pledged that the founder would "not take a penny in salary or compensation" and that "100% of the fund raised ... will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose." Lying to get someone's money is fraud.

3/ The indictment alleges that Bannon received over $1 million from the campaign, which he used to secretly pay the founder and to cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in his own expenses.

If this sounds like a very simple case to get your head around, that's because it is. 

4/ There are some twists and turns in this story. The crowdfunding website suspended the "We The People Build The Wall" campaign, which pledged to give all of the money to the federal government to build the wall, early on. 

5/ The website said they would return the funds unless the founder identified a non-profit to which the funds could be transferred. Bannon used a separate 501(c)(4) non-profit group that he already controlled to receive the funds, with the new purpose of funding a private wall. 

6/ The indictment alleges that Bannon and his associates continued to lie, claiming that the founder would "take no salary" and would receive not "a penny of compensation from these donations." These alleged lies were repeated many times, according to the indictment. 

7/ Yet Bannon paid the founder hundreds of thousands of dollars in "salary" and did so in a manner meant to conceal the payments, by making payments to the founder's spouse. Bannon falsely reported on the 1099 tax form that the payments were for "media." 

8/ In sum, the indictment alleges that Bannon, the founder, and their other co-conspirators each received hundreds of thousands in donor funds from the effort.

If this case didn't involve Steve Bannon, or an effort to ripoff Trump's base, it would be a garden variety fraud. 

9/ Federal prosecutors routinely investigate and prosecute cases like this one.

It can be complicated to prove that otherwise legitimate companies or individuals engaged in fraudulent activity. This isn't one of those cases. The whole organization looks like a scam. 

Everything connected to Donald Trump is a scam.

10/ If the prosecutors can prove what is alleged in the indictment, it's hard to imagine a jury hesitating to convict the defendants. This case raises questions about Barr's recent attempt to fire and replace the SDNY U.S. Attorney, or whether Trump will pardon Bannon. /end

What will his current one be busted for?  (Reminder that the current one is recently replacing one that was siphoning hundreds of thousands to buy luxury automobiles and boats and in general have a fabulous lifestyle.)

Countdown to Trump saying he hardly knew Steve Bannon and never met the others.*

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Also, Bill Barr's "right-hand man" appointed to the DC justice office is going to probably have some extra headaches now, because his name happens to the same as one of the indicted crooks: Timothy Shea.

UPDATE:

*UPDATE:  And there it is...

He didn't know "those three people."

In other interesting news: Berman is testifying today

“The Attorney General said that if I did not resign from my position I would be fired,” [SDNY Attorney Geoffrey Berman] said in his statement, a copy of which was obtained by The Washington Post. “He added that getting fired from my job would not be good for my resume or future job prospects. I told him that while I did not want to get fired, I would not resign.”

Barr urged Berman to step aside, saying that if he did not, he would be fired, according to the statement.

[...]

Barr began by saying he “wanted to make a change in the Southern District of New York,” Berman wrote.

[...]

Berman told Barr he “loved” his job and asked the attorney general if he were “in any way dissatisfied” with his performance. Barr said he was not and that the move was “solely prompted by Jay Clayton’s desire to move back to New York” and the “administration’s desire to keep him on the team.”

And there was no other spot for him on the team, huh?

Berman told Barr he knew and liked Clayton but that “he was an unqualified choice.”

He said he was not interested in the civil division job or in resigning, and that he would leave when a nominee was confirmed. He told Barr that there were important investigations he wanted to see through to completion.

Which was no doubt exactly Barr's problem.

Berman said he was signaling to Barr “that I was not going to resign so he could disregard normal procedure and appoint someone from outside the Southern District” instead of his deputy.

During the meeting Barr asked Berman for his cellphone number so that Barr could call him later that day. Berman gave him his personal cell number and told him that his position “would not change this afternoon or in the future.”

After the meeting, Berman called senior aides and attorneys who might represent him if he were fired. He said he wanted to be ready to challenge the firing on the grounds that he was appointed by the judges of the Southern District and therefore could not be fired by the attorney general or the president.

[...]

Berman, 60, a lifelong Republican who had volunteered on the Trump transition team, was appointed U.S. attorney on an interim basis by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in January 2018. Trump personally interviewed Berman, who had been an assistant U.S. attorney in Manhattan from 1990 to 1994. When 120 days had passed without the president nominating a permanent U.S. attorney, the judges of the Southern District stepped in and appointed Berman to the job, pursuant to federal law.

[...]

Later that evening he had a brief conversation with Barr. He told Barr he wanted until Monday to discuss the situation with his executive staff. At that point Barr offered him the SEC chairman position, Berman demurred and repeated that he wanted to have a final conversation on Monday.

“This is about you,” Barr said. Replied Berman: “It’s about the office.”

That was the last time the two men spoke.

At 9:15 p.m. that Friday, in a surprise move, Barr announced that Berman was stepping down; that Trump planned to nominate Clayton, to take his place; and that in the interim Trump would appoint the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, Craig Carpenito, to oversee the New York office in an acting capacity.

Appointing Carpenito as acting U.S. attorney “would have been unprecedented, unnecessary and unexplained,” Berman wrote.

About two hours later, Berman fired back, saying he had not resigned and intended to stay in his job until a nominee was confirmed.

[...]

At about 3:30 p.m., Barr released a letter he had sent to Berman notifying him that he had been fired by the president.

In what Berman called a “critical concession,” Barr also stated that Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, and not Carpenito, would serve as acting U.S. attorney until a successor could be confirmed.

“With that concession and having full confidence that Audrey would continue the important work of the office, I decided to step down and not litigate my removal,” he wrote.

[...]

Berman’s office brought a number of high-profile cases that involved Trump associates, including convicting the president’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen of tax evasion, campaign finance violations and lying to Congress. Last October, Southern District prosecutors charged two Trump and Rudolph W. Giuliani associates, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, with scheming to funnel foreign money to U.S. politicians while trying to influence U.S.-Ukraine relations.

[...]

Strauss, colleagues say, possesses the experience and acumen to guide the office through turbulent times while upholding its long tradition of independence.

A registered Democrat, she was an assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District from 1976 to 1983. While there, she bested defense attorney and political fixer Roy Cohn, a man Trump has called a mentor, in his attempt to overturn convictions of two Mafia members.

I think we can call that a big blow-up in Barr's fat face then.

The administration’s critics have said they believe that Trump wanted him gone because Berman’s prosecutors had been investigating the president’s allies, including Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani.

Thursday’s closed-door session is part of the committee’s inquiry into Barr’s management of the Justice Department and what Democrats deem his “unprecedented politicization” of the historically apolitical agency. Barr, who has been criticized for intervening in cases of personal consequence to the president, is due to testify publicly before committee at the end of July.

  WaPo

Any bets he won't? Besides mine, that is.

Committee Republicans dismissed the testimony of Berman, a lifelong Republican and party donor. “Berman provided no testimony today that any case involving the president or any other human being was at all a part of the decision to move him out of the Southern District,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.)

Hmmm. Matt. We're talking about Barr. Why do you bring up Trump? Hm?

Trump has nominated Jay Clayton, the current head of the SEC, to be the next U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York although he has no experience as a federal prosecutor — a point Berman made to Barr.

Senate Republicans have indicated they are unlikely to move ahead on the nomination.

Damn brave of 'em.

Check out Laura Rozen's Twitter thread on it here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Impeach Bill Barr.

Aaaaaaaaaaand...another failure

Oooops.

Some days it's hard to keep up

Friday night, Barr issued a press release saying Berman was resigning. Shortly thereafter, Berman posted his own statement, saying, “I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.”

Barr released another letter he wrote to Berman, saying he had asked Trump to fire him. “Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service,” wrote Barr. “Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.”

[...]

Saturday afternoon, less than two hours before Trump’s campaign kickoff rally in Tulsa was set to begin, Berman posted a new statement on his office website, in which Berman declared that he would be leaving his position, “effective immediately”:

In light of Attorney General Barr’s decision to respect the normal operation of law and have Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss become Acting U.S. Attorney, I will be leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, effective immediately. It has been the honor of a lifetime to serve as this District’s U.S. Attorney and a custodian of its proud legacy, but I could leave the District in no better hands than Audrey’s. She is the smartest, most principled, and effective lawyer with whom I have ever had the privilege of working. And I know that under her leadership, this Office’s unparalleled AUSAs, investigators, paralegals, and staff will continue to safeguard the Southern District’s enduring tradition of integrity and independence.

  Mediaite

UPDATE:

Ooops

UPDATE:

Impeach them both.

And another one

Trump has fired Geoffrey Berman as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, sources familiar with the decision told ABC News.

The surprise move comes two years into a tenure that included the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Jeffrey Epstein and two associates of Rudy Giuliani.

The decision was delivered personally by U.S. Attorney General William Barr, who a Justice Department official told ABC News offered Berman other positions, including head of the Civil Division at Main Justice.

He declined the offer and was subsequently fired and Craig Carpenito, the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, was named to lead the office on an interim basis.

  Yahoo

Berman followed Preet Bharara, who was fired at the beginning of Trump's reign when Bharara refused to pledge allegiance to Trump.

"I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was 'stepping down' as United States Attorney," [Berman] said. "I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate."

"Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption," he continued.

[...]

Trump intends to nominate Jay Clayton of the Securities and Exchange Commission to replace Berman.

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti wondered if the abrupt personnel change might be to protect Rudy Giuliani.

[...]

“Given Trump’s history, would anyone be surprised if he fired Berman to influence or quash the investigation of Giuliani?

[...]

“Be concerned,” former DOJ official David Laufman warned his Twitter followers. “Be very concerned.”

  Raw Story

And the Senate is controlled by Republican Trump lackies.  He won't have a problem there.  It's just as important in November to flip the Senate as it is to remove Trump.

SDNY has been handling an investigation into the Trump Organization, the pay-off to Stormy Daniels, Trump's hidden inaugural donors, and Deutsche Bank's sketchy loans to Trump.

“The SDNY presents the greatest ongoing legal threat to Trump and his people,” says Mimi Rocah, a former chief of the office’s organized crime unit. In February the Times reported that Trump had asked Barr’s predecessor, Matthew Whitaker, whether a perceived loyalist could be put in charge of the SDNY’s work; Whitaker subsequently denied, under oath, having had any such conversation. But it’s hard to imagine Trump won’t try to intercede if the famously independent SDNY—currently back in the headlines for charging billionaire Jeffrey Epstein with sex trafficking—moves to indict one or more of the president’s high-ranking associates. (Epstein has pleaded not guilty.) “The fear is that Trump doesn’t even need to say it out loud anymore, because Barr is so protective of him,” Rocah says. “It would be ridiculously naïve not to be concerned.”

  Vanity Fair        July 2019

And, here's your bottom line:

UPDATE:

I'd like to think so, but I'm not that confident.

UPDATE:

There seems to be a little confusion.  So unusual for this administration.

UPDATE:  Berman steps down.

"Take her out"

And now come the taped recordings.

A recording reviewed by ABC News appears to capture President Donald Trump telling associates he wanted the then-U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch fired while speaking at a small gathering that included Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman -- two former business associates of Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani who have since been indicted in New York.

  ABC

Well, that's not exactly how he put it. That would be how a normal president would put it. But Trump is a mobster.

"Get rid of her!" is what the voice that appears to be Trump’s is heard saying. "Get her out tomorrow. I don't care. Get her out tomorrow. Take her out. OK? Do it."

[...]

Sources familiar with the recording said the recording was made during an intimate April 30, 2018, dinner at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C.

[...]

On the recording, it appears the two Giuliani associates [Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman] are telling Trump that the U.S. ambassador has been bad-mouthing him, which leads directly to the apparent remarks by the president. The recording was made by Fruman, according to sources familiar with the tape.

"Every president in our history has had the right to place people who support his agenda and his policies within his Administration," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said.

Not like that. And, by the way, is Trump going to still pretend he doesn't know Parnas and Fruman?

"I don't know him," the president said just last week when asked about Parnas. "I don't know Parnas other than I guess I had pictures taken, which I do with thousands of people, including people today that I didn't meet. But I just met him. I don't know him at all. Don't know what he's about, don't know where he comes from, know nothing about him. I can only tell you this thing is a big hoax."

[...]

During the conversation, several of the participants can be heard laughing with the president. At another point, the recording appears to capture Trump praising his new choice of secretary of state, saying emphatically: "[Mike] Pompeo is the best." But the most striking moment comes when Parnas and the president discuss the dismissal of his ambassador to Ukraine.

Parnas appears to say: "The biggest problem there, I think where we need to start is we gotta get rid of the ambassador. She's still left over from the Clinton administration," Parnas can be heard telling Trump. "She's basically walking around telling everybody 'Wait, he's gonna get impeached, just wait." (Yovanovitch actually had served in the State Department since the Reagan administration.) [Ed: She also testified believably under oath that she never said anything like that: "I did not and would not say such a thing.”]

[...]

The identities of others participating in the recorded conversation are unclear. During an early portion of the recording where video can be seen, Donald Trump Jr. appears on the recording posing for pictures with others. Sources say they were attending a larger event happening at the hotel that night for a super PAC that supports the president.

[...]

In a recent interview with MSNBC, Parnas publicly recounted his memories of the scene at the dinner and said that Trump turned to John [DeStefano], who was his deputy chief of staff at the time, and said "Fire her," he claimed. Sources familiar with the closed-door meeting corroborate that DeStefano was in attendance.

DeStefano must testify before Congress.

A copy of the recording is now in the custody of federal prosecutors in New York's Southern District, who declined to comment to ABC News.

I'm sure there's more to come.

Giuliani was spotted at JFK airport today. I think the SDNY, where Rudy is being investigated, might want to have a court restrict his travel.  Just sayin'.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE: 9/11/21

Igor Fruman found guilty in Trump campaign charge

Impeachment is just the tip of the iceberg

There's a huge shoe yet to drop, and we have no idea what will happen when it does.

You need to listen to this podcast from The Bulwark. ("Charlie Sykes and guests discuss the latest news from inside Washington and around the world. No shouting, grandstanding, or sloganeering. Conservative, conscientious, and civil.)

Here's the article they reference, of the same title as the podcast.

"The real reason for getting the impeachment trial done fast is defensive: Republicans want to dispense with their Constitutional responsibility before the public realizes there is a second Russia-focused federal criminal investigation underway and that Trump, once again, is at the center of it."

New York DA takes over from the SDNY on Trump hush money payments

Bill Barr can't block New York state.

State prosecutors in Manhattan subpoenaed President Trump’s family business on Thursday, reviving an investigation into the company’s role in hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to people briefed on the matter.

[...]

The inquiry from the district attorney’s office, which is in early stages, is examining whether any senior executives at the [Trump Organization] filed false business records about the hush money, which would be a state crime, the people said.

[...]

The district attorney’s office [headed by Cyrus Vance Jr] initially considered mounting the inquiry nearly a year ago, after Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty. Mr. Vance’s office paused at the request of the federal prosecutors [who were working the case against Cohen].

[...]

His office previously declined to charge two of Mr. Trump’s children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who were under criminal investigation in 2012 over allegations that they misled buyers interested in the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium project.

[...]

[]f Mr. Vance declined to bring charges in the hush-money case, the decision could fuel criticism that he has pulled punches with the Trump family.

  NYT

Which he obviously did.

The investigation will focus on a $130,000 payment Michael D. Cohen, the president’s lawyer and fixer at the time, gave [Stormy] Daniels. Mr. Cohen also helped arrange for a tabloid media company to pay the Playboy model Karen McDougal, a second woman who said she had had an affair with the president. The disclosure of the payments ignited a scandal that threatened to derail the Trump presidency.

[...]

While Mr. Cohen has said he arranged the hush-money at the direction of Mr. Trump — and federal prosecutors have since repeated that accusation in court papers — less is publicly known about the president’s role.

[...]

The subpoenas from [...] the Manhattan district attorney, came only weeks after the Trump Organization had appeared to fend off federal scrutiny of the same payments.

[...]

[The SDNY], which charged Mr. Cohen last year with campaign finance violations in the hush-money case, revealed in a court filing last month that prosecutors had “effectively concluded” their inquiry, signaling that it was unlikely they would file additional charges.

But state law makes it a crime to falsify business records, offering the Manhattan district attorney’s office another avenue.

[...]

The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Thursday separately subpoenaed the media company, American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer.

[...]

Following the groundwork laid in the federal investigation, the district attorney’s office is expected to scrutinize the senior ranks of [American Media], although it is unclear whether the inquiry will reach the president.

[...]

The company, whose leader was friends with Mr. Trump, cooperated with the federal investigation and received a nonprosecution agreement.

He's gonna need another one.

I've been reading speculation that Bill Barr stepped in to stop the SDNY investigation, but I wonder if the SDNY closed their investigation precisely so that the state of New York could take it over in order to get around Barr and to be sure no pardon power was available. I guess both could be true.

Now the serious stuff for Trumpworld

Separately, state authorities in New York are pursuing several investigations focused on the president, his associates and his business. Those matters include a mortgage fraud case against Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, as well as civil inquiries into the Trump Organization’s insurance practices, real estate deals, and whether the family’s charitable foundation violated tax laws.

As for the Southern District, it is known to move aggressively — more so than some other offices — to stake a claim to new investigations based on tips from cooperating witnesses and other sources. In this instance, it appears to be leading some of the most sensitive spinoffs — ones with the potential to directly affect Mr. Trump’s business, his inaugural committee and possibly himself.

In the hush money investigation, the Southern District prosecutors have already implicated the president, claiming in a court filing that Mr. Cohen “acted in coordination with and at the direction of” Mr. Trump. While the prevailing view at the Justice Department is that a sitting president cannot be indicted, the prosecutors in Manhattan could consider charging him after he leaves office, particularly if he does not win re-election and is a private citizen before the legal deadline to file charges expires.

The investigation into the Trump inaugural committee partly grew out of a recording that F.B.I. agents seized when they raided Mr. Cohen’s home and office. On the recording, Mr. Cohen is heard discussing potential irregularities with one of the main contractors for the inauguration.

[...]

The Southern District’s reputation for nonpartisanship — and history of autonomy from the Justice Department in Washington, giving it the nickname “Sovereign District” — may make it less vulnerable to attacks from the president and his allies. The president’s lead lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, led the office from 1983 to 1989 and later became New York’s mayor.

[...]

For the most part, the investigations surrounding the president and his associates have been assigned to career prosecutors in the office’s public corruption unit, which has a track record of convicting politicians on both sides of the aisle.

[...]

Most of the investigations focus on President Trump or his family business or a cadre of his advisers and associates, according to court records and interviews with people briefed on the investigations. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, with about half of them being run by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

[...]

Some of the investigations involve allegations that may be too old to be prosecuted. Yet taken together, the investigations show that the prosecutorial center of gravity has shifted from Mr. Mueller’s office in Washington to New York.

[...]

In an interview that aired on Friday morning, Mr. Trump told Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business Network that his lawyers were perplexed by reports that he faces multiple investigations.

“I said to my lawyers, ‘Are we being looked at here?’” Mr. Trump said, adding that his lawyers “don’t even know what people are talking about.”

  NYT

Bullshit. They know very well. The Trump Foundation, the Trump Organization, the Trump Inauguration Committee - they're all already involved in lawsuits. And what other Trump investigations might be happening are yet to become possible lawsuits.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

The Inauguration investigation

Regarding Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

Over the years, Wolkoff would become a member of Melania’s small inner circle. After Trump’s surprise electoral-college victory, she went on to help the First Lady in Washington, serving as a senior adviser to her official governmental office on matters large and small. Wolkoff helped facilitate Melania’s transition to the White House, and advised her on policy platforms, East Wing décor, and her overall messaging.

The two were close enough that Wolkoff could openly express divergent views. According to sources familiar with the conversations, Wolkoff told Melania and East Wing staffers that the name for her anti-bullying initiative, “Be Best,” sounded illiterate.

  Vanity Fair

So right, and that's what makes it so perfect.

They also disagreed about the infamous “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket that the First Lady wore to the U.S.-Mexico border. (Melania, according to these sources, thought the trip would not get attention without such a brazen fashion gesture. [...] )

Bad publicity is better than no publicity.

But the two women remained close, nevertheless. On trips to D.C., Wolkoff would sometimes spend the night in the White House residence; other times, she would book a room in the Trump International Hotel down Pennsylvania Avenue. According to e-mail exchanges from the time, she was given the friends and family rate of $345 a night, and told to submit receipts to Reince Priebus.

Why? Was she getting reimbursed?

Through her company, WIS Media Partners, Wolkoff oversaw Trump’s sprawling week-long inaugural festivities—she sourced and managed third-party vendors, entertainers, and broadcasters, and oversaw the themes and production of all the concerts, dinners, balls, and programming. She worked in close proximity to the Trump family and inaugural chair Tom Barrack, a billionaire private-equity real-estate investor who had been a close friend of the president for years. And yet a year after the swearing-in ceremony, Wolkoff left the White House amid an uncomfortable public-relations crisis regarding the president’s inaugural committee.

[...]

The inaugural committee had raised a stunning $107 million—about twice what Barack Obama had hauled in 2009—from donors such as Sheldon Adelson and corporations like AT&T. But as the Times reported, the tax form revealed profligate spending—nearly $10 million on travel; $4.6 million on salaries and benefits; and $100,000 to Rick Gates, the former campaign aide and deputy chairman of the inauguration who, about a week later, became one of Robert Mueller’s first major cooperating witnesses. Some $40 million was publicly unaccounted for. Wolkoff, as the event planner in charge, became the face of the disarray.

[...]

Wolkoff herself received $500,000 for her work on the inauguration. She had submitted audited records to the inauguration committee in March 2017, a month after she signed a gratuitous-services contract to work as an unpaid strategist and senior adviser to the First Lady.

Why unpaid?

After the Times article, given her established documentation, Wolkoff urged Melania to defend her. But the administration demurred.

When will people learn that the Trumps will throw anyone under the bus? Maybe when Senior throws Junior under, which I think is coming up soon.

A week later, Wolkoff left the East Wing after the White House instilled new security protocols in the wake of the Rob Porter scandal. A member of the White House Counsel’s Office called her on February 20, 2018, to let her know that the White House would be terminating all gratuitous-services agreements, including hers. It had nothing to do with her work on the inauguration, this person told her. “I am sorry that the professional part of our relationship has come to an end, but I am comforted in the fact that our [friendship] far outweigh[s] politics,” Melania wrote her in an e-mail later that day. “Thank you Again! Much love.”

Ha! And who wrote that for her?

Later that evening, in a phone call, Wolkoff told the First Lady that she worried it appeared as if she had been fired on account of her work on the inauguration. The First Lady urged her not to be “dramatic.” Less than a week later, however, the Times published a story stating that the severance of Wolkoff’s contract had been “prompted by displeasure from the Trumps” over the $26 million payment.

[...]

By the time [Michael] Cohen and Wolkoff spoke last summer, she had returned to her life in New York. He would soon plead guilty to eight counts in a federal courthouse downtown. But Cohen let Wolkoff know that, among other documents and recordings, the F.B.I. had seized hours of their own conversations that he had taped. According to people familiar with the recordings, some of the taped conversations dealt directly with the inauguration. In them, Wolkoff detailed her own contemporaneous concerns with the inauguration—about how money was being spent, the general chaos of the process, and the involvement of Trump’s adult children.

[...]

These recordings, in part, led the Southern District of New York to launch a criminal investigation into how the inaugural committee spent its record $107 million. Now, the investigation appears to be advancing. [...] On Monday, the inaugural committee received a subpoena from the S.D.N.Y. requesting documents related to spending and donors, vendors, and benefits handed out, as well as documents related to a wealthy donor who had once registered as a foreign agent working on behalf of the Sri Lankan government.

[...]

Wolkoff, suddenly and unexpectedly, could find herself in the middle of the maelstrom.

[...]

Upon accepting the [inauguration committee] post on the Friday after [Trump's] election, Wolkoff quickly reached out to her network of vendors. Most of them, according to people familiar with these conversations, resisted the opportunity to work with Trump. Even Burnett, who Trump enlisted to conjure up reality-show-like gimmicks (such as flying a gaggle of drones over the crowd), wanted to keep his involvement private.

[...]

Trump’s adult children have always been involved in affairs pertaining to their father, from his businesses to The Apprentice to his campaign. Each week, Wolkoff met with senior inaugural-committee members to present itemized, detailed updates on the status of her planning and financial reports from each vendor and for each event. She was also making regular presentations to Trump, Melania, and the Trump family about various decisions, so that they could weigh in. (White House spokespeople have previously denied that the Trumps were involved in any planning, and said they knew little about the events.) Trump and Ivanka were briefed on Burnett’s drone idea, for instance.

Drones overhead?! But wait! That's not all...

Trump was focused on the big-picture theatrics. He wanted to arrive on the Mall in a military plane with a military escort, much as he had arrived for tapings of The Apprentice on Trump Organization helicopters. He also wanted to have a full military parade, as well as tanks and helicopters on the ground. Ivanka, meanwhile, had more particular interests, according to e-mail and text exchanges and people familiar with the conversations. [...] She texted photos of the Obama family standing onstage together, with Sasha and Malia prominently situated in the middle of the frame. “FYI regarding the swearing in, it is nice to have family with him for this special moment,” she wrote.

LOL. She wanted in those photos.

Wolkoff worried about potential ethical issues surrounding the First Family-elect and their businesses. After all, Gates had been staying in a suite at the Trump Hotel for most of the inaugural planning. More than a dozen inaugural staffers had also been staying there. The Times reported last month that WIS alone had charged $31,000 for hotel rooms in the span of less than two months, including almost $18,000 at the Trump International Hotel. That did not include what was charged for room service, meals, and travel. In all, the Trump International Hotel was paid more than $1.5 million in inaugural funds, according to the Times. (Wolkoff’s contract states that the inaugural committee would reimburse WIS for travel, long-distance phone calls, mail-delivery services, and expenses connected to the performance of its work. WIS stands for “Who Is She,” Wolkoff’s play on her own anonymity.)

[...]

During the course of planning, Wolkoff had corresponded with Ivanka about the cost of using the Trump Hotel for events leading up to the swearing-in ceremony. On December 10, 2016, a Trump Organization employee sent an estimate for a ballroom rental and food and beverage minimum to use the Trump Hotel space for eight days. The price she quoted was $3.6 million, according to an e-mail. A week later, Gates e-mailed Ivanka about the cost. In this exchange, first published this past December by ProPublica and WNYC, Wolkoff flagged her concern. “These events are in PE’s [the president-elect’s] honor at his hotel and one of them is for family and close friends. Please take into consideration that when this is audited it will become public knowledge,” she wrote.

[...]

For an event producer used to detailed lists and punctilious itemization, Wolkoff was often caught off guard by the ad-hoc nature of the committee. According to the two people familiar with the matter, Gates approached a couple individuals working on the inauguration and asked if they would be willing to be paid directly for their work by a donor, rather than by the inaugural committee.

[...]

Wolkoff frequently told Melania about her concerns regarding Gates, these people said. She relayed her concern about the high access level of his security pass within Trump Tower and his closeness with the Trump family. In her view, these people said, he exacerbated a situation already fraught with potential conflicts of interest. Members of the inaugural committee talked about how he frequently worked out of Donald Trump Jr.’s office. He was in constant communication with the adult children in order to keep them in the loop about decisions surrounding the inauguration.

And he's cooperating with Mueller. It's going to be a little difficult for Ivanka when she has to tell Mueller's team she had nothing to do with any of it.

[Wolkoff] started to grow concerned about being left out of meetings, particularly as she raised more red flags. Because part of her responsibilities included reviewing all budgets from her vendors and presenting them to other members of the inaugural committee, she studied the line items in order to be able to explain them. At points, she could not justify the numbers coming in.

[...] 

She sent an e-mail to her team and Barrack on December 31, 2016. “I am DISGUSTED by [Hargrove’s] lack of transparency and entitlement to [the Presidential Inaugural Committee’s] funding,” she wrote. “I can not approve any budget line items because I do not have a clue what these numbers represent!!”

[...]

Much has been made of the various problems with the inauguration, from the lackluster crowd size to the president’s own “American carnage” speech, which struck a tone so dark that George W. Bush was reportedly heard calling it “some weird shit.” But Wolkoff’s part, the event itself, went off without a hitch, and the family was pleased.

[...]

How deep the Southern District’s investigation into all of this is yet unknown. But much like some of Cohen’s other taped conversations, the discussions with Wolkoff about the inauguration may have turned out to be consequential. On the witness stand during Paul Manafort’s trial in Virginia last summer, prosecutors asked Gates if he charged personal expenses to the committee. “It’s possible,” he responded.

[...]

One of the most inexplicable plot points in the whirling Trump drama has been the president’s public treatment of his former lawyer. Trump was aware that Cohen possessed all manner of damaging information about him, and yet he wasted few opportunities to disparage him publicly. Ultimately, Cohen implicated Trump in federal campaign-finance violations as he pleaded guilty. He spent more than 70 hours cooperating with federal investigators, opening his book to tell them what he knew about the president, his business, and the campaign. While Wolkoff’s treatment has been gentler, she’s been similarly isolated and publicly disparaged. And now, what she knows could be of interest to investigators, too.

No doubt.

UPDATE 2/16:

New Jersey's attorney general has now also subpoenaed financial records from the inaugural committee.

So...there's a silver lining in the shutdown for Trump

I fear Judge Napolitano is going to lose his job

link

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.